- Foundation for the Development of Civil Society (FDSC) has set itself an almost impossible mission within the program In Good Condition: the communication of a very rarely used concept in Romania and often replaced by others that are not as “round” and full of meaning
- The objective of the campaign was to bring intersectionality on the agenda of non-governmental organizations, but also of institutions, in order to design interventions and public policies with impact
“Didn’t you find a better word too?”, “how do I explain this to my audience?”, “why is it important to tell him «intersectionality» and no «discrimination»”, „is there any synonym?”. These were just some of the questions we ran into over the past few months in our quest to bring intersectionality not only to the attention of non-governmental organizations in Romania, but also to the widest possible audience for such a conversation.
“We are with all our identities around, like a whirlpool, in all the lanes of a swimming pool at the same time”
“No, there is no synonym, because we don’t have one in Romanian and maybe not even in English that expresses something so complex… I think of this image when I explain the distinction between multiple and intersectional discrimination: a swimming pool, where, looking from the perspective of multiple discrimination, a swimmer is sometimes seen on the gender discrimination aisle, sometimes on the disability aisle, sometimes on the age aisle, etc. It’s like that swimmer might be of a certain specific identity, in a certain lane. In general, decision-makers judge things this way and generate policies based on analyzes of these separate colors and which give results on these colors as well. But as our identities work like a vortex, we are with all our identities around us and we will be in all the lanes of the pool at the same time. To find solutions, you have to see that they work simultaneously, they overlap”he explains Emanuela Ignațoiu-Soraassociate lecturer at the University of Bucharest, Faculty of Political Sciences.
Claudia Petrescu, researcher at the Quality of Life Research Institute, and Emanuela Ignațoiu-Sora carried out the study together Intersectionality between concept and practice. How is the concept of intersectionality understood and implemented among Romanian non-governmental organizations. The study is an initiative of the Foundation for the Development of Civil Society (FDSC), being the first large-scale research in Romania that addresses intersectionality. The research had quantitative and qualitative components: survey among the general population; survey among NGO employees, members and volunteers; in-depth interviews and participatory learning workshop with NGO members; document analysis and secondary data analysis.
Why a study was needed
In 2023, the In Stare de Bine program, financed by Kaufland Romania, for the first time supported initiatives that integrated the concept of intersectionality. Projects were funded that specifically targeted those vulnerable groups and communities affected by several disfavoring factors acting simultaneously – from discrimination based on ethnicity, gender, age or sexual orientation to precarious socio-economic status and /or residence environment. All these particular aspects “intersect” (hence the term “intersectionality”) and complicate the situation of the beneficiaries, requiring integrated approaches on several dimensions.
“In Romania, the term “intersectionality” is mainly used in specialized literature and is adopted only by a limited number of organizations from the feminist or more extensive sphere of human rights. However, non-governmental organizations are the closest to integrating an intersectional vision, both in their internal work and in their relationship with beneficiaries”he says Laura Cireașaprogram coordinator within the FDSC.
But what is intersectionality anyway and what is it for? What does this concept mean, in what contexts is it used and for what purposes? The concept of “intersectionality” was first formulated in 1989 by the American jurist Kimberlé Crenshaw, currently a professor at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) and at Columbia University, both in the United States of America.
In simple terms, intersectionality is a social science concept that refers to the multiple overlapping identities that people hold over the course of their lives: race, sex, gender, social class, ethnicity, religion, mother tongue, sexual orientation, ability/disability , age or body weight.
All these multiple identities overlap – they “intersect”, hence the name of the concept – and define the position that a person occupies in relation to the system of social relations and power at a given moment. Each of us, with very few exceptions, faces various forms of discrimination throughout our lives, resulting from the interaction or “intersection” of these features that make up our identity. The basic idea of intersectional approaches is that all these multiple dimensions work in tandem, and therefore solutions to social problems must in turn take into account the specifics of these interactions.
Why we decided to communicate publicly to a general audience
In Good Condition is a funding program that annually provides non-refundable grants of 1 million euros to non-governmental organizations. By carrying out this research, the program expanded its impact area in society and consolidated its position as the most important NGO financing program from private funds.
“This study was carried out within the In Stare de Bine funding program, which we, Kaufland, have been supporting for seven years. We have invested over 7 million euros in community projects aimed at improving the lives of tens of thousands of Romanians, and we welcome this research initiative that we hope will open the conversation towards the construction of innovative support policies for the most vulnerable categories of the population”, say Katharina ScheidereiterKaufland Romania CSR Manager.
In other words, it also required a component of communication with the general publicfor him to get background on the concept and understand what the public policies of 2024 should start to look like.
Online publications, televisions, radios and some relevant influencers helped us spread the word, whose communities “rolled” the topic and debated the ideas in comments and shares. The total cumulative audience, in the press and reach in social media, exceeded 1.5 million people, on 28 channels, through earned and paid interventions. Intersectionality became a topic of debate in the mainstream press through g4media.ro, B1TV, RFI or GenStirito list just a few of the appearances, but also news in the local press, from The newspaper of Iasi the White Strings.
The campaign that involved key opinion leaders presented the concept of intersectionality through three different lenses and thus illustrated, from three perspectives, how many nuances this concept gathers. Alex Stan told from the perspective of a Roma person who faced discrimination all his life, Ruxandra Gîdei demonstrated the concept using literary characters, and Gyorgy Gaspar explained it from a psychological perspective. Thus, a complicated concept became easy to understand and see by online communities.
The “internal communication” component brought together NGOs close to the program in a learning workshop. The world through lenses was a workshop where participants could learn from each other about the concept and how it can be implemented by Romanian organizations in current work practices.
“All the lenses through which we saw this concept in the last year, the exercises we participated in, the media pitching approach and the search for the most suitable KOLs showed us that intersectionality is a concept that concerns us all. The conversation with the press evolved every time from «didn’t you find a better word too?» the «Oops, I’m here too. I didn’t know I was discriminated against». When we got to the news in our immediate reality, everyone who helped us carry the campaign messages forward understood the importance of the term. Roma and disabled women who lose their lives or who give birth on the sidewalk because they are denied access to the medical record, elderly, single, poor and often disabled people who suffered terribly in the asylums of horror… These cases made them for KOLs and journalists to understand that although we are today among the privileged ones, we were or may be at a given moment in situations of vulnerability that require an intersectional approach”, credit Ana Jitaritaconsultant Stratagents.
Expert authors of the study: Emanuela Ignațoiu-Sora, Claudia Petrescu
FDSC team: Laura-Mihaela Cireașă, Mihaela Gheăță, Ioana Ilie
Stratagents team, communication: Ana Jităriță, Cristiana Andrei-Vărban, Bogdan Ciubuc, Anne Mihăilescu
Graphic concept: QuickData
Source: www.iqads.ro
